Studies Of Cathode Structure For Direct Methanol Fuel Cells

Water management of direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) is very important for the improvement of performance and stability of DMFCs. Gas diffusion layers (GDLs) has a great effect on the water management ability, so it gets much more attentions recently.Firstly, the experiment was focused on the optimization of GDLs under the condition of low air stoichiometric. The effect of lamination (including three factors: pressure, temperature and time) on the performance and stability of DMFCs was further investigated and the optimized lamination condition was finally obtained. Results showed that optimization of the production technique of membrane electrode assembly (MEA) can improve the pore structure in the cathode diffusion layer, form a structure that some water can be driven from the cathode to the anode and decrease the mass transfer resistance. As a result of that, the problem of water flooding had been ameliorated under low air stoichiometric condition and the performance and stability of DMFCs.got improved obviously.A simple and practical apparatus had been set up for testing the properties of GDLs for the first time. The properties of GDLs included of the gas permeability coefficient, water permeable pressure and the water quantity collected in the cathode. Cell performance was the final evaluation method to...